Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Welcome to Shaw's Progressive Bluegrass. We talk about everything bluegrass from progressive to traditional and everything in between. I really appreciate you joining me here today. I'm really looking forward to sharing this podcast with you and Bluegrass fans throughout the world. I've got a slightly different take on bluegrass than I think, I think I hope a lot of you listeners out there are going to appreciate it, maybe enjoy it, certainly learn something, or just be reminded of something that you knew once before. One of the cool things I've always enjoyed about Bluegrass is the fact it's an endless wormhole of discovery. We're gonna get into that in future show topics, but initially today I kind of just wanted to introduce myself. Who is Trevor Shaw? T Shaw and what is with my progressive bluegrass? Well, I kind of came from a music family. My father was huge into folk music.
Speaker 1 00:01:01 He was a giant Kingston Trio fan, grew up in the fifties and so in the eighties he was actually between jobs. He had gotten laid off and there was a magazine called Goldmine Magazine. It was a record Collector's magazine, primarily dealing with vinyls, and this is before internet and where to get them and prices and new albums coming out, et cetera. But one of it had a column each month called the Kingston Corner. And the Case Corner was essentially a Kingston Trio newsletter. And for whatever reason, they dropped it. So my father wrote him a letter or called him, can't remember which one, and said, Hey, do you mind if I take that over? And they're like, yeah, fine, whatever. I've had it. We don't care. So during this time of unemployment, he starts a newsletter and he runs it out of the house, out of the basement.
Speaker 1 00:01:49 And of course, you know, running a newsletter back in the eighties for a band or anything for that matter, you're the president of the fan club by default. So he's starting to develop a following with Kingston Trio fans throughout the world. And yeah, the Kingston Trio probably is aware of it. And they're doing a Chicago show. They're coming through town. And of course, you know, there's not a lot of money in folk music, especially this time. Said, Hey, would you, Alan, would my father, would you man the merch booth? Would you sell our cassettes and records and what have you? And so I'm not certain if he had met them before then, but he probably had. But regardless, you know, he sells the, the, the records and the cassettes and t-shirts and what have you. And at the end of the show they're like, Hey, you're, you're running the newsletter.
Speaker 1 00:02:38 Why don't you sell our records and cassettes through your newsletter, through your your fan club? And he said, sure. And started doing that. And then I started to get calls. People asking is, are, is, is this music available on Compact disc the latest in the greatest technology of music in the eighties? And so my father calls the case, drew up and says, Hey, you know, people are asking for these on cd. What's the story? And they're like, well, we don't own the masters. We don't own the the rights Capital Records does. So he gives Capital Records a call and he is like, Hey, you know, people are calling me, asking me to get Keith and Trio music on Compact disc. And they're like, there's not enough volume for us to justify doing that. And he's like, well, can I release them on cd? Can I buy the Masters?
Speaker 1 00:03:27 And so he flies out to Los Angeles, they hand him the keys to the vault, he spends a couple days in Capital Records vault and finds all the keys and Trail masters that he can and works out a deal to buy these masters. And before you know it, he's re-releasing these onto cd. And a record company is formed in the basement of our house. And of course this expands and grows. And he develops a catalog instead of just a newsletter. And other artists asks him to sell records and CDs and he continues to produce CDs. And of course, musicians are always looking for a producer. So he starts producing other, other acts, other labels. And we have a record company grow of our basement. And it made me allow to be open in the future to an acoustic guitar in a banjo. At the time, growing up, I hated it.
Speaker 1 00:04:15 I heard Tom Dooley until my ears bled. I don't care to ever hear it again, but it's part of my childhood. And popular folk music just isn't my thing. But the instruments I had no idea were. So I ended up graduating high school and in 95 and shortly thereafter, I discovered Dave Matthews and Dave Matthews Band is was my first introduction to Str Jam Band. String band music. I loved the Sound of a Jam. I'm a big fan of the Jam and it's a huge part of what got me into Bluegrass. But I discovered Jams and I was open to a fiddle or a violin depending on what you want to call it, and an acoustic guitar. And it was the first opportunity I ever went on tour and traveled around and camped and, and pursued a musician that I just absolutely adored. Bought single tickets so I could get up close.
Speaker 1 00:05:21 You know, this is back in the Ticketmaster days where you had to go to the third level of a Sears customer service behind the appliances to buy your tickets. Times have changed. Well, Dave Matthews Oli was my first like musical passion. It was also the first band that broke my heart. They released these crowded streets in 2001 instead of the lily white sessions that they had been promoting on the tour up to that point, it was made for radio crap. It wasn't Dave Matthews style, it wasn't, there was no Jams. It was all made for radio, three minute written. It was co-produced by Glenn Ballard. And they wrote and produced the whole thing in like three weeks or something ridiculous. And he had all the money in the world. He was making 40 million per tour. Of course that was shared amongst everybody, but a ton of money to have airplay in 2001 when you're the biggest thing going, just, it broke my heart.
Speaker 1 00:06:23 And so never before did a band, did I fall for a band and then have my heart broken by the same band. So during this time, I was also a casual Phish fan. I'd been to probably half a dozen shows and I really enjoyed the scene Tie Dyes and The Jams. I really enjoyed the Jam band. So I had gotten a hold of a picking on the Fish cd and this is back in probably 2001, 2000. It was 2000. And my father had gotten it for me and it was this all bluegrass instrumental only of Phish songs. And it really spoke to me for the first time. Bluegrass spoke to me and it wasn't, I didn't realize that bluegrass could be cool music at the time. I was young and it was really cool 'cause I recognized the music and enjoyed the music previously. And it was all instrumental.
Speaker 1 00:07:18 Really enjoyed the jam. So still not full-blown bluegrass just that opened the door. It allowed me to be open. And then I, I made a copy of that cd, I actually copied it onto a cassette, still didn't know about digital music per se, and ripping and burning CDs. So I copied it onto a cassette and we went to a fish concert that summer and we're in the parking lot waiting to get out, you know, the parking lot's all backed up. So I ended up getting outta the car and was talking to one of our neighbors in the parking lot and mentioned I had this Fish Bluegrass cassette. And he got all excited, oh, you like bluegrass? You like bluegrass. Oh man, you gotta check out this band Yonder Mountain String Band. And he trades me two CDs, a set from, I wanna say 98 and a set from earlier that year in 2000.
Speaker 1 00:08:13 And it's pretty rough around the edges. It might've been 99 in 2000, but pretty rough around the edges. Yonder, mountain String Band. And so we traded for a cassette. I got a, I got an amazing deal and enjoyed them as well. But then it, you know, this was, this was crude yonder, this is, you know, college kids getting together and partying happened to have string band instruments. So it was enjoyable, but it still didn't, it just didn't quite grab me yet. Well then in 2008, my friend David comes to visit from Kansas City. He was in town on business, but used it as a great excuse to get together. And we were with my fiance in Atlanta where he was traveled on business and he had MP three music on his computer, digital Music Files. It was the first time I ever had a chance or an opportunity to swap music digitally.
Speaker 1 00:09:11 And the, it's before I fully embraced the technology. So I had him rip some music that I played and found and discovered on his hard drive. And one of the bands was Yonder Mountain String Band. And it was their New Year's run in 2006, I wanna say it was the 29th and the 30th of 2006. And Keller Williams was there and it was the most amazing music I'd ever heard. It was an absolute amazing jam band, bluegrass party, high energy just made me want to dance, you know? And I'm saying just dance. So I got these two CDs and listened to 'em and listened to 'em and listened to 'em and kept getting better and better every single time. And I ended up finding some additional yonder on archive.org and downloaded a couple shows and just wow, game changer. So I ended up getting an iPhone and at the same time I got an iPhone. I initially got it because I wanted to be able to send email from my phone and use it as GPS. I didn't know at the time that the GPS wasn't really a GPS, at least not with the iPhone three, but whatever. So I didn't fully get it right away. I didn't quite get into iTunes right away.
Speaker 1 00:10:40 But we go out to dinner with my father who's visiting from out of town, and one of his friends who's local, Jerry, who had just come back from the 2008 IBMA. And he's telling my father about this young, energetic, incredibly talented bluegrass band that he just saw for the first time. And he ended up bringing two ripped copies of their first two albums, fork in the Road and the infamous string dusters. And he gave 'em to my dad and he is like, I think you might really enjoy these. Well, the whole time Jerry was explaining the infamous string dusters to my father. I'm envisioning something else in Bluegrass Beyond Yonder Mountain String Band. 'cause so far I only knew Yonder really only knew two shows and was just listening him to on repeat this whole time. So after dinner, I bring these two CDs home and upload them as my very first CDs into iTunes, even though I had the iPhone a couple weeks now, this is the first time I'm uploaded music onto my computer to actually put on my phone. And I have the first two string dester albums. And the first two string dester albums were pretty conservative. There were a lot more traditional bluegrass than the yonder Mountain Jam band party I was hoping for.
Speaker 1 00:12:10 Little did I know I was about to learn a giant error in my ways because I had not seen them live yet. And what a different experience. The dusters are alive. So this is summer fall of 2008 and I'm still really enjoying Yonder Mountain String Band. And periodically we'll spin the duster's first studio albums and get through the holidays. And you know, I've been living in Chattanooga for a little over a year now, 13, 14 months. I just haven't really had the opportunity to get out, make any connections. Any friends just haven't really developed a social circle at this point. And well, there's a deadhead at my office, I could tell. 'cause he had a steely window sticker on his Subaru Outback and he was in sales as well. And his name was Brad. And I go into Brad's office, I read in, we had a, we were doing radio advertising, but we also had a alternative weekly newspaper.
Speaker 1 00:13:18 And it was Monday, January, whatever, seventh I think. And I'm reading in the Daily on my lunch break that the band, the infamous string dusters are coming that Wednesday, two days later playing at a bar down the street from the office on a Wednesday. And I'm like, Hmm, I bet I would enjoy that live. It's right down the street and I got nothing better to do. I'm gonna go see if that deadhead, Brad wants to go. So I go into his office Monday afternoon, I'm like, Hey Brad, do you like bluegrass? He is like, yeah, you know, blah, blah, blah. I don't mind it. I'm like, well, there's this Bluegrass fan coming Wednesday night down the street from here. Do you want to go? And he is like, yeah, that sounds great. Well, what I didn't know at the time was Brad likes to go to bed at eight.
Speaker 1 00:14:10 He gets up at 5:00 AM and walks his dog three miles and it just doesn't go out on weeknights, especially not late on a weeknight for a concert that probably doesn't even start until 9:00 PM I have no idea how I did that. I had no idea what an accomplishment it was at the time. But we have remained fantastic friends and it was just the moons aligned with the stars. Maybe you thought I was a good connection or something. I have no idea. So I get him out and we go to the String Duster, my first string duster show and two songs in. I realize that Holy Cow Live the infamous string dusters or something else. This is amazing. This is even better than the the yonder CDs I've been listening to. These guys are outstanding and that, ladies and gentlemen, boys and Girls, dogs and cats, reptiles, if you're into that sort of thing, is pretty much the day. T Shaw's, progressive Bluegrass was born January 9th, 2009. I'll get into more details as we go forward in future episodes. I want to thank everyone for listening to my episode one, and I sincerely hope you found enjoyable, maybe even enjoyable enough to come back. For episode two, we're going to talk about my recent Alabama getaway to Birmingham, where in addition to some pretty cool tourist activities, I got to listen to and see in person for the first time Mountain Grass Unit. Looking forward to telling you all about it. Thanks again for supporting Shaw's Progressive Bluegrass.
Speaker 1 00:16:17 Hi, I'm Trevor Shaw. I'm not just a bluegrass extraordinaire. I'm a bluegrass extraordinaire. That's also a mortgage loan officer at Chat Mortgage right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'd be honored for the opportunity to help you get your residential mortgage loan or refinance anywhere in Tennessee and Georgia. From veterans to first time home buyers needing down payment assistance to retirees finally getting the home they've always dreamed of, call or text me at (423) 991-7429. That's 4 2 3 9 9 1 7 4 2 9 or at chat mortgage at 4 2 3 5 9 1 9 8 0 1 NMLS number nine two nine three eight one. Give me a call today and we'll get you taken care of.
